“Yes. She wants your allegiance very much. She’s very aware she needs you more than you need her. Her concern for her people is, as Travis said, very real, and very deep. She is particularly concerned that the children in her region are not only safe and educated and sheltered, but happy. Her ambition is not slight. She wants the region, and believes she can bring it safety and prosperity.”

“She’s not wrong,” Arlys said. “She’s ensured loyalty because she gives it. It may be a kind of benign dictatorship, but we’re in a different world. I didn’t see any cruelty in her or her rule.”

“She offers two thousand fighting troops for that allegiance.”

“Three now.” Mallick poured more tea. Winter chilled his bones now in a way it hadn’t for centuries.

“Three?”

“She has four,” Travis told her. “An easy read. But we agreed she needed to hold back a portion to secure her city, her people.”

Mallick nodded. “There are old and young and others unable to fight who need protection. As well as the city itself. The three thousand come with arms—and her forges will continue to produce weapons. As you suspected, she has other alliances. With these negotiations, she brought in those leaders. They are both smaller groups, but we have, between them, another fifteen hundred.”

“Over four thousand.” Feeling the surge, Fallon sat back. “What did we promise in return?”

“We recognize her rule and the sovereignty of the other alliances. If needed, we assist them against our common enemies. We open trade with them, while respecting their borders. A small side deal with Vivienne is her request we assist her people in creating a tropics area and the means to begin growing coffee beans, tea, cacao, pepper, citrus, and so on.”

“Smart,” Fallon decided. “Not only will she have that capability, but she’ll be able to trade directly with her other alliances. I’d prefer if we sent a coven up to create it rather than giving them the means to do it themselves.”

“Which is what we agreed to. She’s satisfied with that.”

“Good. Over four thousand and, with luck, nearer to five when Mom and Dad and Ethan get back.”

“From where?” Travis demanded. “I thought they were just busy somewhere.”

“They are. Just not in New Hope.”

She explained the mission, listened to the back-and-forth. Then rose. “I want to thank all of you. By successfully negotiating these alliances, you’ve given us a strong advantage. We have allies in the north, and thousands of troops who’ll fight with us. We’ll need them to take New York. Meda, would you be willing to go west with me to find more? To hopefully find and forge other alliances?”

“I answer the call of The One.”

“Travis, I need you on this one.”

He sent a wide grin to Meda, who answered it with a stony stare. “No problem.”

“Arlys, I’d love to read what you’ll write on this in New Hope News.”

“It’s all but written. I promised Vivienne a copy. They have very, and that’s very, rudimentary IT, but Chuck will figure it out.”

“Okay then. Mallick, if you could stay for a minute.”

The rest headed out, Duncan and Travis to the barracks, Will and Arlys back to New Hope, and Meda to prepare for the next journey.

Fallon poured Mallick more tea, moved to sit beside him. “Three words to describe Vivienne.”

“Vain, ambitious, loyal.”

“I can work with all of those.”

“I’ll add she envies you.”

“Me?”

“Your power and position. With the envy is genuine admiration, and a little fear.”

“I can work with those, too. Is there any reason to think, if we help her secure Quebec, establish herself as head of that state, she’ll want more?”

Pleased she thought beyond the battle, he picked up the tea. “I think not. Quebec is personally important for and to her. More would require more work. I believe she’ll be a staunch ally. She sent you a gift.”

Rising, he walked to the bag he’d brought in, took out a small pouch. Intrigued, Fallon opened it.

The moonstone pendant glowed white. Carved on it, as if as one, three figures blended. The owl, the wolf, the alicorn.

“It’s beautiful.” The stone was set in silver, the words inscribed on its back read: WISDOM, COURAGE, LOYALTY. THE SPIRITS OF THE ONE. “And, like Arlys said, gracious. I’ve never seen work this fine outside of the vault we found in D.C.”

“Her craftsmen do more than make the practical. She has jewelers, silver- and goldsmiths, those skilled in working with silks, velvets, furs. Quebec will be a monarchy under her. I believe she’ll rule well.”

Because it touched her, Fallon hooked the pendant onto the chain with Max’s wedding ring, Simon’s St. Michael’s medal. Rubbing her fingers over the faces, she spoke casually. “She didn’t tempt you?”

“She’s too fancy for me,” he said, clearly amused. “And not my type. What do you need to ask of me?”

She looked at him then. “I wanted to give you time at your cottage, but instead I’m asking you to stay in New Hope, to help Duncan season some of the recruits. I’m sorry to—”

He waved her off before she finished. “Fifteen centuries I’ve waited to fulfill my duties. This is what I’m made for.” In a rare show of affection, he closed a hand over hers. “I answer the call of The One.”

“You could have Colin’s room while you’re here.”

“Now, that does tempt me. But I’d do better with the seasoning if I stayed at the barracks. Perhaps I’ll be invited to a meal when your mother returns.”

“I’ll make sure of it. In the meantime, I can tell you they eat well at the barracks. We’ve seen to that.”

“Then I’ll join Duncan and Travis, and get a meal. A safe journey west.” He rose, retrieved his bag, then looked back at her. “You’ve done well, girl.”

“High praise from the old man.”

Alone, she sat a moment longer. Not just battle plans now, not only training, readying troops. Now alliances, politics, diplomats, borders. Now visions for the tomorrows must come through the smoke. She had no desire to be a queen, to rule over the re-forming world. But if she took up the sword to lead that world to war, she needed to know the ways to embrace the peace, and hold it.

Once, she’d drawn back the curtain to show Colin the blood and battle, the worst the dark demanded. She held the hope that one day, she’d draw it back to peace, to unity, to all the light offered.

But for now she rose to prepare for the journey, for her quest to find more souls to lead to war.

* * *

While Fallon packed provisions, Lana sat in the pristine living room of Tereza Aldi, Lucy’s grandmother. A handsome woman, her stone-gray hair coiled in a braided bun at her nape, she sat stiffly in a chair.

She offered no refreshment.

A wood-burning stove, obviously scavenged and added after the Doom, squatted in the corner and sent out some stingy heat.

Still, the chill in the room came as much from the woman as the winter.

“I appreciate you seeing me, Mrs. Aldi.”

“I’ve told you we have nothing to say to each other, but you’re persistent.”

“Women raising children in this world have to be. I’d hoped you had some message you’d like me to take to Lucy.”

“She made her choice.”

“She told my daughter you once hid a magickal from Purity Warriors.”

“We’re not heathens.” She lifted a hand to the cross she wore around her neck. “Or fanatics, like that godless cult.”

“It was an act of kindness, of humanity, that involved considerable risk.”

“They would have killed the boy—one no more than ten. We don’t wish your deaths, Mrs. Swift. We only insist you keep your distance. We live quiet, peaceful lives here.”

“You have a lovely community. As do the magickals who live across the river.”

“They stay on their side, we on ours.” She kept her hands folded, implacably, on her lap. “The boy wandered over, and should have known better.”

“I have three sons,” Lana said with a smile. “I can’t count the times they should have known better. I have a daughter, too.”

“I know who you are. Know who she is, and what she claims to be.”

“She doesn’t claim, she is. But more directly to you, she saved your granddaughter’s life.”

“I told you I have no desire to hear—”

“But you will hear.” Lana’s voice changed, snapped. She’d tolerate the chill, even what she considered the rude, but she wouldn’t tolerate ignorance. “You’ll hear, then I’ll go. The child you raised—”

“You hear!” Tears as much from anger as grief sparked in dark eyes where lines fanned out in deep grooves. “I raised Lucia. I raised her because her father died in the Doom, and her mother, my own daughter, my only surviving child, changed.”

In turn, Lana folded her hands in her lap. She considered the temper progress when measured against the cold stone wall she’d hit before. “How?”

“Became like you. Cursed, she was. Cursed, and mad with it. The world dying around us, friends and neighbors sick or already buried. My husband dead, my two sons dead. And my only daughter wild, wild and violent where she’d once been kind and loving.”

When Mrs. Aldi looked away, her knuckles white as bone on her lap, Lana said nothing. Better to wait, Lana thought, let it all come out.

“She tried, my loving daughter, tried with fire from her own hands, to burn down the house. Burn it down while the baby she’d wanted so much screamed in her crib. The baby’s room, she started that fire in Lucia’s room, and laughed like a mad thing, wept like a mad thing. Reason couldn’t stop her, pleas couldn’t as I rushed in to grab the baby, as others rushed to put out the fire. She only laughed and wept and threw more flames from her hands. Those flames struck one of the men who’d come to help, and she laughed and laughed as he burned. Laughed and wept as others dragged him out to try to save him.